Feast or famine

By some miracle of nature I managed to survive the financial fallout of our holiday and made it bowleggedly to the weekend, which was supposed to make up for the largesse of the trip. I can go an entire week here on $10 or I can spend $500 in 3 hours, there really doesn't seem to be much in the middle. This weekend was one of the rare examples though - an unusual sensation of having fun out somewhere without pelting $100 notes at people.

"Cool biz" (short for "cool business") has just come in, meaning that we can ditch our long sleeves and ties in favour of clothes better suited to the mugginess (although many seem to be stoically pressing on in their woolen suits). The weather can't seem to decide whether it's foggy or fine but it's getting sticky and unpleasant either way - I'm not looking forward to summertime walks up the hill. Although the loudspeaker electioneers have ceased their din for the moment, a few people seem to be sneaking in as much noise pollution as they can before the rainy season starts, including a particularly angry fellow who always seems to be bellowing something into his microphone outside the office. Seeing my curiosity, one of my coworkers explained that he's from one of the nationalist right wing parties "like Yakuza" here that drive around angrily in their big black vans. I joked that I'd never be seen again if I tried to walk past them to the bank - they laughed but didn't disagree.

We headed out to the amusingly named "Lalaport" in Nishinomiya on Saturday, a big shopping centre near the area's big baseball stadium. As we walked past there was a big roar from the crowd and the few stragglers we could see perched at the very back next to the fence craned their necks to see what had happened. They had obviously had a bit more luck than we did a couple of weeks ago. Vowing to try and book a game that hasn't been sold out months in advance, we continued on to the shopping centre.

Lalaport's claim to fame is a separate building called "Kidzania", which I can't explain to you because I'm too big and ugly to be allowed in there. All I know is that it's a big amusement park that parents will line up for hours to get into, and that it means 40% less screaming children in the main part of the mall. So with significantly fewer pram bruises on our ankles, we wandered from shop to shop looking for nothing in particular. Perhaps the most interesting nothing we found was a "pudding egg" stall - a shop selling eggs that have been made into pudding. I mean that quite literally - cartons of eggs with pudding inside rather than what you'd expect.

What has science done

I assumed that meant that they had sucked the egg out, made it into pudding, put it back in the shell and sealed the hole but not so; using some kind of dark magic, they manage to scramble and cook the inside of the egg into pudding without cracking or piercing it. Needless to say, we bought some and apart from being quite disconcerting, they were nice. Nothing's added to the eggs so they can be eaten savoury, but we stuck with the very sweet caramel sauce that came in the carton. I don't know why they should feel any different to hard boiled eggs, but there's definitely something odd about cracking an egg and seeing what looks like a creme brulee inside - it's almost like cutting open a roast chicken and finding it full of toffees.

Got any 100 yen coins?

Inevitably, we headed to the UFO catcher place after a several-month break ("I can quit any time") and I managed to win enough chocolate to last us for a month at least - 3 packs of chocolate nuts, a big box of Kit-Kats and some Oreo finger things. The attendant was awfully pleased, grabbing me a carry bag that said "Caught it cause I didn't give up on it". I didn't know whether to be pleased or mortally depressed. We finished off with an obligatory buffet dinner, featuring amazing roast beef and black sesame ice cream. If there's one thing Japan does a great job of, it's all you can eats. Well, that and pudding eggs.